Chapel Hill, NC - A disagreement between Nancy Allbritton, MD, PhD and David Lawrence, PhD over which cancer - breast or prostate - should be the higher priority in their partnership resulted in two successful NIH grant proposals. Lawrence is taking the lead on a prostate cancer grant while Allbritton leads a breast cancer grant – totaling almost $5 million over the next five years.

Chapel Hill, NC - Hyman B. Muss, MD, has joined the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Muss will be a professor of medicine and will develop and lead a new program in geriatric oncology.

Members of the NC General Assembly are touring the North Carolina Cancer Hospital to get an early view of the state’s new state-of-the-art facility. Greeted by UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp and UNC School of Medicine Dean Bill Roper, the legislators visited several key locales in the building that will improve the way cancer care is delivered at UNC and across North Carolina

Chapel Hill, NC - Kimberly Kasow, DO, has joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as director of the UNC Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation program. Kasow is an associate professor of pediatrics and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

On June 20, Dr. Lisa Carey, medical director of the UNC Breast Center, gave a talk on “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Breast Cancer But Were Afraid to Ask” in Dare County. This inaugural “Lunch & Learn” was held in the Cancer Resource Center of the Outer Banks Hospital with an at-capacity crowd of 40 people.

On Friday, June 6th, the UNC Specialty Clinic opened its doors to patients in Dare County and the surrounding areas. Dr. Thomas Shea, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center associate director of clinical outreach, and Jean Sellers, RN, oncology program manager traveled to Nag’s Head for the first day of clinic operations.

CHAPEL HILL, NC - A new collaboration between melanoma researchers in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), and researchers from the departments of computer science, epidemiology, biostatistics, and statistics and operations research at UNC Chapel Hill aims to use image analysis techniques to aid doctors in the fight against melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer.

CHAPEL HILL - Fred Eshelman, chief executive officer and founder of Wilmington-based PPD Inc., has pledged $9 million to support cancer research at the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

CHAPEL HILL - The University of North Carolina’s two medical schools and their cancer centers have signed a memorandum of understanding that creates a partnership to advance cancer research and bring leading-edge treatment to North Carolinians.

CHAPEL HILL – The governance committee of the University Cancer Research Fund has established first-year spending priorities for the state’s initial $25 million investment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Stephen Frye, PhD, former worldwide head of discovery medicinal chemistry at GlaxoSmithKline, will lead the new Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.